March 28, 2024

Hospice conference to focus on grief, bereavement

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Skiff Hospice’s annual spring conference is currently accepting sign-up applications through April 27. This year’s topic “Beyond Five Stages: What Everyone Needs to Know About Grief (But is Afraid to Ask),” will be held at the DMACC Conference Center at 600 N. 2nd Ave. W. in Newton.

The May 4 conference is intended for nurses, social workers, mental health counselors, chaplains, funeral directors, hospice staff and volunteers and community members. There is a $40 fee for attendees which includes breaks, lunch, snacks and handouts.

The event will feature speaker Robert Zucker, MA, LCSW, FT. Zucker, a grief counselor, hospice administrator, writer, consultant, teacher and public speaker who has specialized in the area of grief and loss for more than 25 years.

Zucker frequently travels through the U.S., leading bereavement seminars for social workers, psychologists, nurses, teachers and clergy. Zucker’s most recent book is “The Journey Through Grief and Loss: Helping Yourself and Your Child When Grief is Shared.”

At the conclusion of the conference, participants will be able to:

• Identify strategies for working with both intuitive and instrumental grievers;

• Explain three challenges grievers often encounter during early grief and specific strategies for assisting those facing these challenges;

• Explain why the book Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief (Klass, Silverman, Nickman) altered how many grief counselors view their work with the bereaved;

• Explain the three components to a “safe haven”;

• Appreciate the importance of exploring a person’s cultural, ethnic and religious beliefs and practices when applying any grief model; Understand Phyllis Silverman’s “Three Stages of Transition;”

• Explain why Robert Neimeyer’s approach known as “meaning reconstruction” is particularly effective during the third stage of transition;

• Appreciate the significance of Therese Rando’s understanding of complicated mourning;

• Explain Edward Rynearson’s use of the “restorative narrative” with violent death survivors;

• Define the following: distorted grief, chronic grief, delayed grief and absent grief;

• Recognize the value of complementary therapies, including use of poetry and other art forms, when working with the bereaved.

For more information on the conference or to register, call Skiff Hospice at (641) 787-3074.